Emma in Africa

So I thought uploading pictures onto this thing, but it isn’t. So I guess you’ll all have to enjoy the one that worked. Sorry. I am sending a CD full of pix home to my dad, maybe he can figure it out. xo
Angie and me on a spice tour in Zanzibar, being a tourist owned!

Hi everybody,
I’ve been cloistered in the village for some time and I just wanted to apologize! I want to look at this blog when I’m done and not be totally embarrassed, but dang if Eastern Uganda isn’t the slowest internet ever.
It’s circumcision season in Bagisu, the tradition that makes the Bugisu who they are. And everyone else in Uganda scared of them. I don’t have any videos yet, but I will soon. I haven’t even seen any cutting, but there is a lot of dancing and parading that i have seen, and heard (at all hours). My friend Josh took some video that he posted on facebook from the opening ceremony (that I missed). Maybe you can watch it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6844294#/video/video.php?v=516794786983
I’ll do my best though, most of Emma’s (my fiance) clan circumcises in December, at his house, so i am hoping to get some video and pictures then.
I’ve been staying way busy, most of the time at least. I organized an outreach testing in a nearby village yesterday, 51 tested for HIV and NO POSITIVES. Pretty good for a country with an HIV epidemic.
9 months left, and I am starting to get excited about the next chapter of my life. If Emma and I can just get through the visa process. We have to go interview at the embassy in Nairobi, yikes! I am totally scared of Nairobi, it is apparently a lot scarier than Kampala and Dar Es Salaam.
I’ll be back with awesome videos and pictures, someday, I promise!

It’s been awhile I know, hope y’all are doing well in summertime USA. I miss it bigtime! It’s always summertime here, and it gets a sister missing the seasons.
The Jaajaa warrior spirit showdown is a income generating project I am planning. It mixes traditional African beliefs and WWF.
I am going on vacation in the beginning of June to beautiful Zanzibar, oh word! I am going with my homegirl Angie and meeting Sarah Cahillane of Bton infamy. She is closing her service in Botswana and climbing Kilimanjaro(hardcore?!) and then to the island. I am super excited and can’t believe how little I’ve travelled since I got here. I haven’t even been west of Kampala. Oh well. But I can make a pretty killer gnut sauce with pumpkin leaves.
I am chugging along at work, two steps forward and two steps back is about the best I can expect. But PC does say that when you’re expectations drop you become much happier, and by golly they’re right! I mean you have to be completely crushed of any hope you have for Africa, but then you can come back from it and see the small things and be happy. Like today on my way into town the taxi conductor stopped the taxi for the oldest lady I’ve ever seen and took her a few miles down the road for FREE. Okay, this may not seem like much to those outside of Uganda, but taxi conductors are evil and greedy and I have seen them push pregnant women out of moving taxis when they don’t have enough money, so this was a minor miracle. I did have to spar with him later when he tried to overcharge me(I won), but you take what you can get!
I found out a few weeks ago that my super home girl Anna Hieronymus is coming to visit and I am so happy. She’ll be coming at the height of circumcision season so hopefully we’ll get to go to some fun parties. Bugisu bali ingo awe (Bugisu are in their house!). It’s a good time with dancing you can’t believe that you are actually seeing. I really want a video camera. Somebody in my TC (village treading center) is selling one, but he wants like 200 bucks. It’s just an old Super8 and I don’t think it’s worth it. We’ll see. I really want video of Emma’s grandparents. They’re old. Kuka(grandfather) is 94, and he fought “for the Queen” in Germany in WWII.

Sorry I can’t seem to keep up with this thing!
I don’t know what my problem is. Actully I do know. It’s living in a village with little to no power or internet access, the nearest town is 2 hours away, and the internet there is too slow to let me write posts on this fancy website. Oh well.
I’m in Kampala right now, and the Peace Corps office has a computer that seems more like a rocketship than anything else. I guess I’m used to the teradactyl in the back, punching all the 1s and 0s like they have in Mbale.
Anyway… I’m getting freaking married!! Here is the love of my life. His name is Emma also. It’ll be easy when you meet us, we have this Heathers-esque ability to tell who someone is talking to at any given time. Anyway, we need to jump through a bunch of hoops, for anyone whose gone through immigration you can relate, I’m sure. But hopfully it’ll be sorted by June 21st, 2009 and you can all come to lovely Bloomington for our wedding!

Things are going well for me here, I finally have work to do…. most of the time. The kids love me and I’ve managed to coordinate a bunch of school’s Straight Talk youth groups to make the Hospital I work at a center for activites. Straight Talk is a government youth organizaton that has a newsletter that reaches all over the country and talks (straight) about all kinds of things kids are taught not to talk about like sex, their bodies and HIV. I heard my name on the radio during the “Khukanuikha Lubuula” show which means “Straight Talk” in Lumasaaba. Actually they said “White lady Emma at the Hospital”. I am talking letters that the kids write in response to questions on the show and forwarding them to Straight Talk. They can win a year’s school fees(school costs money here), and that’s a pretty big deal. My youth group called The Young Stars have been working on a coffee tree nursery and dramas/music. They love it, and it’s a way to get the youth involved as teachers and mentors for other youth. Sweet deal! That means I don’t have to teach evryone in the village about HIV myself!
So things are going pretty good, though bombs have been shaking my house cause Kenya has started bombing the Saboat militia that is hiding out in the mountains. Kind of nerve racking, but PC tells me I’m safe. I’ve never lived in a war zone before, so I’m just taking thier word for it.
I also want to go visit Zanzibar with the lovely and charasmatic Sarah Cahillane, formerly of Bloomington, and about to close her service in Botswana. I pretty much need a vacation. Bad. So wish me luck, I hope it won’t be as long til the next time I write, I am coming back for a Mid-Service Confrence at the end of the month(that means I’m halfway done!).

That’s right this is an EDUCATIONAL blog, so it’s not actually fun. Kind of like math in that way.

1. Don’t argue about taxi prices with the taxi conductor if no one else is. I know you came to Africa to “fight for the peoples’ rights”, but all you’ll be fighting is citizen’s arrest and a bunch of angry Mamas.

2. The rat will eat your knickers. I don’t know about you, but aint no rat eating my knickers! So chase it around the a closed room with your boyfriend for like an hour. It’s gonna jump a LOT, since it fears for it’s life. Catch it under the tablecloth and hit it with a massive book. Then let the boyfriend finish it off with a metal ruler to the neck.

3. If the crazy lady that threatens to beat you unless you give her money grabs your bag and carries it to your house for you, just let her. Give her a 100 shilling tip(5 cents).

4. If you have to hold a baby with no nappies on, balance the kid so that any waste products drop between your knees. This is hard when you are wearing a skirt. Just another reason why the dress code in Africa sucks.

5. Just go ahead and use the pee (sou-sou) bucket. It might take a few dark lonely nights to convince you. But after a visit from a demon? bushbaby? nightdancer? what the hell was that? You’ll change your mind fast. Believe me.

So maybe I was a bit remiss to say that Marberg’s was the new Ebola. ‘Cause clearly, Ebola is the new Ebola. At least this week. There is something about an Ebola outbreak that makes my everyday work with HIV seem like a walk in the park. We also have some other outbreaks, all in the same area of the west, I’m so glad to be living in the east:

Bubonic Plague (yes that one, it didn’t go out of style with jousting, like you may have thought), Cholera (nothing new), Menegitis (sounds not so bad), and Hepititus A (me, I’d do that on a Tuesday). But no fear, the CDC will be here by the end of the week, and I’m sure all this outbreak needs is a good dose of American sunshine.

The whole country has gone mad with CHOGM fever! Don’t worry, it’s not the hot new Ebola(that’s called Marberg’s disease), it’s the Commonweath Heads of Government Meeting. It is going down in Kampala right now, and I hear it’s all the rage these days. Heck, the queen of England even came. But mostly it’s just funny for us in the villages. I have been cracking up at the radio ads leading up to the meetings, becuase they had some PSAs encouraging resturants to have their staff look clean and be nice to patron, have enough glasses for everyone and have the items that are actually on the menu. Also, hotels were encouraged to wash sheets, so the guests don’t get bedbugs.  The motto since last summer was “Are you ready for CHOGM?”. I have to say that I have been, considering it gave us two national holidays last week, and I am always ready for that.

Next hottest thing: Circumcision season! Boys of 20 getting circumcised in front of their 200 closest friends and realitives, getting tanked on local brew, and doing the booty shaking circumcision dance. Stay tuned!

Hi everyone,

It’s been a long time, but I finally have the abilty to post again, yey!

So I went hiking on the ridge that lines my village called Namisindwa with Emma (my boyfriend who has the same name as me) and it was really amazing. We packed a lunch and put it in my backpack(Aunt Kate, the Deuter was superb) which Emma preceeded to carry since I am such a lightweight. In my defence though, I did carry it on the way down. We started out at about 7:30, and went towards the ridge, on foot paths to further out villages. We ran into family and friends the whole way through saying, “Mulembe Mukwase!” (Peace Sister-in law!) to me, and “Kamahuwa Papa” (what’s the news Dad?) to Emma.

We walked higher and higher, each time I’d sight another ridge I’d find myself on top of it and little bit later. It kept going like that, until our own village faded to rooftops behind us. We could see Tororo Rock in the hazy distance. As we climbed higher, there were fewer children and more fields, we started passing right beteen people’s huts as the “road” really turned into a crazy stone footpath. But Emma said that donkeys still came down with heavy loads, and their green poop was evidence enough for me. Suddenly I realiuzed that we were acually above the waterfall that I look at everyday, dang we were high!

The two boys Emma gave candy to show us the way up were speeding up the cliff rocks with their bare feet, but meanwhile I felt like I was going to a brain anyerism. A man was coming down from the mountain and Emma had a quick convo of which I could hear the general gist of which was “you aint getting up on that ridge.” Baiscally we would have to climb a rock face barefoot, and if you fall, you die.

So we desided on the less ambitious route to the waterfall and a cave that Emma visited when he was in high school. Embaressingly enough, this is the point at which a tiny shoeless man came running down the path with a 50 lb bag of onions on his head. Oh well.

We ran into one of Emma’s Brother-Cousins (all cousins are brothers and sisters here) and he took us across to the stream that comes off of the falls. It was freezing cold and I splashed my face and hair with it, as I was way too hot. Emma said his cousin had come there to bathe. We headed to the “cave” which wasn’t really a cave (hello, I’m from southern Indiana, I know what a cave is), but more a bunch of rocks that had broken away from the cliff face. Water dropped on us from hundreds of feet up as we climbed through an illegal bean patch.

We had passed the concrete marker for the game reserve a while ago, but people here had just ignored what the government says and planted anyway. Emma said the army and game rangers are scared to come and regulate, because when they’d show up a drum alarm would go across the hills and valleys, and people would come out of their huts naked and ready for battle. Anyhow, the cave was really a  shallow cavern with salt deposits on the roof. We crawled up through some rocks and sat out on one and ate our lunch.

We walked back through kamatorre fields which are the green bananas, here they mash and serve them with groundnut sauce. Many a banana tree saved my butt as we decended really rapidly. It started raining, and the genius rain fly on my backpack served it’s purpose well as we stored cameras in it and walked through the mud.

We saw a man carrying paraffin coming off a side road and Emma told me he was smuggling it from Kenya. Guess the taxes at the border are worth the several hour hike around, huh? So we had an amazing hike, khunina bulayi!

But I don’t think I’m quite ready for Mt. Elgon yet. I can’t imagine that 7 mile hike and then having to sleep on the freezing ground, eat very little food, and find my own water to sanitize. I think I need a few months planning. But it was great all together, and Emma and I have plans to look at a real cave and visit his blind great uncle-grandfather who lives on the ridge. I’m looking forward to it.

Call to evening prayer, Kampala, Uganda

Each year Ugandan school girls participate in dance/song contests with other schools. Here are some videos of the contest, the singing and dancing are both great. The first is short, the second a bit longer, the third the longets, about 4 minutes. I love the interaction, the call and response between the dancer and chorus, as well as the feeling of community and oneness while featuring a single performer at the same time.